A blog about my life, knitting, and other stuff.

May 31, 2009

Someone decided that--instead of using one of the many free and legal parking spaces available on our street--he would park his truck across our driveway and on our parking strip, blocking both of our garages and decimating the wood chip pile.

Nice move, asshole.

Bella would never park like that.

ETA: The police actually came a while after we called them. And now the truck is gone.

I have been thinking about getting another dog. Wes is apprehensive, to say the least, since we already have 100+ pounds of dog wandering around the house. But yesterday I was bored and started looking at dogs available on Petfinder.org. Then I found this listing. It's another two year old female black lab mix named Bella! I kind of teared up when I saw her, knowing she needed a family. We have a call in to the shelter.

May 28, 2009

The back of Georgie is growing steadily. I'm getting a little bored with the pattern. It's simple but you can't just zone out and knitknitknit. I also just realized that I'm going to camp in less than two months and my Giant Latvian Mitten Cardigan is nowhere close to done. I'm maybe a third done and I'll be traveling for almost all of June. Maybe this weekend I can build up a head of steam and get the body done and cut the sleeve steeks. Maybe...

May 26, 2009

Wow, that was a harrowing morning. After spending an hour hitting refresh and many crashes later I got myself registered for the Sock Summit. I'm hearing there may still be spaces in classes available so even if you couldn't register befor--or you thought your classes were all full--it's worth checking again. Good luck, everyone!

May 25, 2009

May 24, 2009

While walking through the parking lot at Costco--in a marked crosswalk with the children--we were nearly struck by a woman who a) did not stop for us b) was driving erratically because she was c) texting on her phone. As she rolled by us, staring at her phone, I called out to the children to be careful because "she isn't going to stop for us because she's TEXTING ON HER CELL PHONE!" She seemed startled...you know, because she hadn't noticed us in the crosswalk in the first place.

Then older son said, imagining the driver's next text message, said, "And...now..some...crazy...woman...is...yelling...at...me."

That Hepburn vest I started earlier this week? Didn't work out. I was just kidding myself about making that yarn work for that pattern. Ripped it out, put the yarn away and started Georgie (free .pdf pattern) in 4 Ply Soft. Much better.

May 20, 2009

Time for something simple and portable to knit. While I was working on Lamour I became fond of another pattern in the same Rowan magazine, Hepburn, also by Sarah Hatton. I'm not 100% sure I can pull off this look but I thought I'd give it a go. I wanted to use stash yarn and ran into a puzzle. The pattern calls for Rowan 4-Ply Soft. I just so happen to have a lot of that in my stash in a lovely color called Beetroot. I have more than enough to make this vest. So much more that I would have loads left when I finished. But not enough to make another sweater. Okay, so I'll hang on to that for a bigger project. So what else is in the stash that the right gauge? Rowanspun 4-Ply purchased in December 2005. The original pattern has a beaded pattern on the bodice. I was planning on doing purls instead of placing beads. With this yarn I don't know if the pattern will be visible at all. But I'm worried that it's not strong enough to hold the beads. As always, I'll worry about that when I get there.

May 19, 2009

Pattern: Lamour by Sarah Hatton from Rowan 44Yarn: Knitpicks Elegance in Grass (just shy of 10 skeins)Needles: US3 and 6 Addi TurbosNotes: I knit the body of the sweater in the round and added waist shaping. When I got to the armholes I split the front and back and knit the pieces flat then joined the shoulders with a three-needle bind off. I tried the method that Lucy Neatby demos in her Finesse Your Knitting 2 DVD. You slip both front and back stitches off the needle, pass the front over the back, knit the stitch then pass the last stitch on the right needle over it. A very firm cast off. I knit the sleeves in the round and then sewed them into the sweater. All in all a very basic, hassle-free knit. The sweater is still damp from blocking. I was shocked at home much dye came out when I soaked it. I didn't noticed the dye bleeding at all when I was knitting but the washing water was very, very green.

May 16, 2009

My older son turned 11 today. He asked to have a birthday celebration at school. He knew exactly what he wanted to bring. Sushi cupcakes.

Nigiri

Maki

He was inspired by Clare Crespo's The Secret Life of Food. Crepo uses a sour cream frosting with coconut to simulate rice. My son doesn't like coconut so we just used leftover buttercream from the last birthday party (we freeze any leftovers and it keeps very well). We had to hunt around for a long time to find green fruit leather for the "seaweed." We finally found green apple fruit leather in the produce department at QFC. The kids at school really liked the cupcakes. One girl declared that older son is "a genius!"

Tonight we had his birthday party. He decided he didn't want cake. He wanted tiramisu. We used Modern Classics 2 by Donna Hay. We subbed very strong decaf coffee with sugar for the espresso and coffee liqueur.

We also sprinkled it with shaved dark chocolate and more powdered sugar before serving it. I was worried it wouldn't be sweet enough for the kids. But they all really liked it. The best thing about this is no baking. It's really quick to throw together and can be made ahead of time. I need to remember this for summer events when it's too hot to cook.

May 15, 2009

I was just kidding with you. Thursdays will be back next week. Besides, do you have any idea how long I had to search to find a sweater that boring? It was hard. And how could I not share something like this with you?

May 12, 2009

I'm continuing to make slow progress on my GLMC. I still only work on it while at Purlygirls. I'm just a few rounds from starting the neck shaping.

Late on Sunday night I got to the armhole on the second sleeve of Lamour. I pulled out all the pieces and was preparing to join it all together when I realized that I was too fried and tired to think about it. But I still wanted to knit and made a rash decision to just knit the top of the front and back flat. So I'm working my way up the back.

I'm getting a little nervous about running out of yarn. I think I will make it but it's going to be close.

I've started a Babette blanket. I have 30(!) skeins of Rowan All Seasons Cotton that I've been collecting for a sampler afghan for years. Yesterday I bought a crochet hook and started a few blocks.

I'm quite sure I'm doing something not exactly right at the end of the rounds. I'm not sure I care all that much. They look all right.

I've been spinning a tiny bit too. I bought this "Batt of Beast" from The Artful Ewe two years ago. I started spinning it about a year and a half ago. It gave me a lot of trouble when I first tried to spin it. I spoke with Heidi about it and she suggested just blending it all up as much as I could before spinning. I've been tearing the batt into strips, rolling the strips up, pulling out a roving from the end of the roll, tearing the roving into short lengths and spinning from the fold. It makes a huge difference and the spinning has been much easier.

May 11, 2009

I have learned so much in last 12 hours. It seems that when some random, creepy young guy, who seems overly interested in my children, intrudes on my private conversation, I--and then entire state of New York--am rude to tell him it's none of his business. On the other hand, people who leave me anonymous comments on my blog insulting me I'm rude are the picture of genteelness.

May 10, 2009

I was in a coffee shop with the boys this afternoon having a snack. There was a guy at the table opposite us who was clearly listening in on our conversation. Younger son was asking me is they had watches "in the olden age." I was asking him for some clarification about when "the olden age" occurred. As we stood up to leave the guy stops me and says, "Excuse me, ma'am. What did your son want to know about the 'olden age?'" My inner-New Yorker reared right up and shot back, "How is that any of your business?" and stormed out. Seriously, just because you're eavesdropping doesn't mean you're actually part of the conversation.

We were driving home from Mother's Day brunch and talking about comic book superheroes (as we always do). I confuse the Green Hornet and the Green Lantern. Sacrilege, I know. My older son was setting me straight about the Green Lantern. He was telling me about his ring and then said that his weakness is the color yellow, which he pointed out was kind of lame. He then began to enact scenarios when being the Green Lantern would not work out.

"Oh no, there's mustard on my hot dog!"

Younger son joined in.

"Ah! Lemonade!"

"Arg, a smiley face!"

"Oh my god, baby chicks!"

"Not a pencil!"

At this point they had to stop because we were all laughing so hard no one could breathe. But it makes you wonder, how did the Green Lantern ever accomplish anything?

May 9, 2009

I'm sick. I have a cold. It's not awful but I'm feeling pretty sluggish. I spent all of last night sitting in front of my computer knitting Lamour and watching Green Wing on Hulu. What a bizarre show. It's like Scrubs but instead of silliness there is a lot of uncomfortable awkwardness and sex. Pretty funny stuff though.

Lamour is growing a reasonable rate. I will begin my first seamless set-in sleeve attempt shortly.

I dutifully trudged to the gym this morning for my run. When I got there there was a sign on the front desk saying the women's locker room would be closed from 10-11. In other words, for exactly the time I need it to be open so I don't show up at work stinky and sweaty. So I turned around and came home. Damn.

I think the body of Lamour is done to the armholes. I started a sleeve last night. Thanks for all the suggestions about my measuring conundrum. I will most likely ignore it all and just wing it. Sorry precise people out there. That's just not me.

May 3, 2009

I love knitting seamless sweaters. You mindlessly knit the body around and around. Ditto for the sleeves. Join it all up. Decrease, decrease. Voila! Sweater! But I've never knit a seamless set-in sleeve. Lamour, which I am knitting in the round from a pattern written for knitting in pieces, has set-in sleeves. So I started fretting after about 2" of the body had been knit about how to deal with the sleeves and yoke. I could knit the whole body, splitting when I get to the armholes, then knit the sleeves and sew them in. But would I knit the sleeves in the round or flat? Will that be a pain stitching sleeves into a yoke with sewn shoulder seams? Should I knit it seamlessly? Will that be hard? Will there be problems down the road that I'm just not seeing yet? Fret, fret, fret. And then there's the measuring. The pattern, like most lace, needs a severe blocking.

See?

Egg crate.

Sweater.

So when the pattern says knit for 35cm, I--after a quick check on Google to see what 35cm is in inches--just don't know how stretched out the lace should be when I measure it. More fretting. First I think, better to err on the long side but then I worry that I'll run out of yarn. Stretch it this much? This much? I just don't know. Since I am quickly approaching the 35cm mark (stretched) I really need to get a grip on myself quickly and figure out what my next steps will be.